Author: Erin Sparler

July 1 was Canadian Day. This Year Canada is celebrating 150 years! Congratulations! Put lovely Design Team Member Dawn did an extra -and extra cool- centerpiece using two Totem Poppet swans as Canadian Geese. What a great idea!

It’s been a long time in the making, but I’m happy to be able to finally share with you a sneak peak at the forthcoming Splash Biome Tunnel Book I have been developing!

For quite some time now I have though the Totem Poppets needed a home. I wanted to make sure that it was both interesting and educational and also customizable. The pages fit a standard 3 ring binder and come preshaoed to look like a Splash that is receding as you turn the pages. Here are 6 pages total, each made from a nice stiff 100% recycled chipboard.

So to that effect, here a short flip through of the finished prototype of the Splash Biome Tunnel Book due to be released in the fall!

Making an Easy Journal Cover for your Planner from Cardboard

Hi, Erin (owner and designer of EyeConnect 🙂 here today I have two journal ideas to share with you!

The first is a tunnel book and art / nature journal I’m working on. I posted this one in Jane Davenport’s mixed media FB ground and had a ton of requests for more details. So, I thought I’d share some pictures of it here.

It’s made of 6 pieces of chipboard with decreasing sized holes in it. Each page represents one of the level of the ocean’s biome levels and features one or more of the Aquadic Collection Totem Poppet animals.

Tunnel book as an ocean Biome by Erin SparlerTotem Poppet Dolphins jumping through tunnel book hole.

​​Totem Poppet Whale eating Krill in the Splash Biome tunnel book by Erin Sparler
(To see more of my in process photos, videos and sneak peek shots follow @EyeConnect on Instagram.) not sure yet what I’ll put in the frame of the binder… ideas?

I just bought and painted a cardboard 3 ring binder from Recollections to house and protect it. I used blues, green and silver watercolors with wet and dry brush techniques as well and bubble wrap to create some texture!

Making an Easy Journal Cover for your Planner from Cardboard

The second journal I want to share with you is a planner or journal cover for several small notebooks I bought for a dollar at Michaels. I’m trying out bullet journaling and needed a new journal to hold ideas, to dos and sketches.
Here is the cover: I used a Jane Davenport’s Mermaid markers with suran wrap to create texture. I’ll continue to add more detailing -picking out stuff I see from the textures- as I work in it, so make follow to follow me @eyeconnect on Instagram to see how it changes!

How to make an easy journal cover from cardboard instructions:

Measure your inserts. Mine were perfect for a 8.5″ x 11″!

Here I have folded the standard letter size chipboard in half.

Punch 4 holes in the cover to lace your elastic through.

I used Jane Davenport’s extra elastic that came with her butterfly journal because I like the colors and if matched the colors of the inserts I found. But you could use any elastic you have. You could even use a rubber back in a pinch.

Start from the inside and go through the top left hole.

Come back up through the top right hole. (See the next picture.)

Go down to the bottom right hole and through to the back.

Come back up through the bottom left hole.

Now either use the clips that came with the set or tie a square knot to secure your eleastic.

Tip: let the elastic overlap and get the clip closed on it before cutting it down to size!! (I used the backs of my scissors and teeth as I was out and about while making this and didn’t have any needle nose players.)

The chipboard cover folded, with the 4 holes and the elastic.

Stitching: start in the inside…

It’s easier to use a bit of overlap and then cut off the excess.

Using the backs of the scissors to close the clasp.

The store bought inserts

Adding some color and texture to the cover.Conclusion:

These two journals span the full gamut from pure art to pure functionality. Maybe you want or need just one or the other, or maybe you need and want both! Either way having one or more journals to work in is a great way to try new things, expire different ideas and experiment with your art, and your productivity!

You can see more creativity and get an inside view by following me on http://www.instagram.com/EyeConnect

We are so excited to announce that commonwealth Charter Schools in conjunction with Box of Light an animation studio used our Totem Poppet animals today to create some really cute stop motion animation is!

Over 250 students signed up for this fun animation class. Box of Light and Capital Area Charter School will be traveling to all the major cities in Pennsylvania over the coming month.

You can check out the finished animations here! (I think the one with the Pegasus is super sweet. And the cat animation is just fabulous. They are all great really! Seriously check them out!!)

http://www.boxoflight.org/commonwealth-charter-academy

And of course you can get your own Totem Poppet animals to make crafts and fun animations with your kids here on Http://www.EyeConnectCrafts.com. 🙂

Fun Valentine’s Day Kids Craft Project!

Live FaceBook Tutorial with MyKidsTime This Fri. Feb. 3 at 10am!!

Thanks for joining us during our fun -and crazy- kids craft time! The live video is available on MyKidsTime FB page and will soon be available on YouTube as well as here.

Here’s our final Valentines Day card using the Lace-Up Broken Heart:

The inside of our kids craft for Valentine’s Day.A second version of our kids craft for Valentine’s Day.The inside of the second version of our kids craft for Valentine’s Day.

Scroll to the end for your discount code!

Thanks for watching!!!

DETAILS:

This Fri. Feb. 3 at 10am Erin, the owner and founder of EyeConnect, and her son Elon -age 5- will show you how to make a fun simple kids craft for Valentines Day. Join us live as we paint, stamp and lace-up 2 of our Lace-Up Hearts is a simple kids craft idea for Valentines Day.

Tune in on MyKidsTime’s Facebook page at 10 AM EST Fri. Feb. 3 for this short and easy kid’s Valentines Day craft tutorial!

If you’d like to craft along with us or if you’re visiting after the live feed here is a supplies list of all of the different materials that we utilized in the craft. And of course please feel free to alter or substitute anything that you may have, that is part of the fun of crafting, experimenting!

And make sure to watch to the end, as I offer a discount code for all of the people that joined us on Facebook live! Thanks for watching! Have fun crafting!

Add a label to a plant to create a fun housewarming gift, or gift for a teacher! Add care instructions, or details on the plants meaning.

Organize your new year with labels!

The first step and organizing anything is labeling! If you come up with labels for your items it will help you decide how to organize your stuff. I believe in labeling first because it helps me figure out how to group my things. If I have a lot of megablocks, or Socks or whatever, by looking and thinking about what my labels need to be I figure out how to group my items and what size basket or box I might need.

There are two sizes of Lace-Up tags- Large rectangular tags and smaller arched tags- that make great labels! But the Lace-Up Hearts also make great labels!

If you leave the chipboard bare and just Zentangle, or tangle on it with colored sharpies you get a cool rustic feel. Attach your labels with twine, or butchers twine that you find in the kitchen to add to that rustic feel. For more feminine feel your label try ribbon or lease. You could also use leather, or chain to create a steam punk lAbel!

14 Unique Holiday Crafts Project Ideas

As the holiday season approaches, you might be thinking about how to make a couple ofunique Christmas cards, holiday crafts or how to keep your children entertained over the holiday break! Chances are, you would love to transform your craft stash into magnificent and spectacular DIY projects while making memories and having fun! The good thing is, there are lots of available ideas in the Internet. Making spectacular, yet easy, holiday crafts and Christmas ornaments doesn’t need to be expensive or complicated as inspiration and affordable materials can be found everywhere. The rest depends on your dedication and creativity.

Here are some fun and uniques craft ideas you can make over the Holidays:

Cute Santa Penguin Craft Project Idea

Holiday card idea with a Cute Santa Penguin.

Are you planning on sending holiday cards to friends and relatives this year? Make your holiday card unique and special by adding a personal touch. Meet the Totem Penguin! Just paint or ink the chipboard pieces of they easy craft kit and connect the pieces using mini brads. A shade of black is cool, but you could also use the person’s favorite color. Be creative and involve your kids in this fun little Christmas card craft and add some silly eyes. To complete your Christmas card design add a Santa hat with glitter along the hat’s brim. Even if you just used a premed card, the DIY Totem Penguin will add a custom touch. Visit https://www.eyeconnectcrafts.com/create-santa-penguin-eyeconnect-crafts/ today for more helpful details.

A Humorous Non-Denomination Holiday Craft Project Idea

Merry everything, non-denominational holiday card.

Looking for ideas for a non-denominational holiday craft projects? Want to wish your friends and family a happy holidays with a politically correct, yet humorous, saying? Try this funny holiday expression!

There is nothing that adds more festivity to a party or a event than flags or pendants hanging above! Lacing-up EyeConnect Crafts’ celebration flags can add a touch of the holiday festivities to your non-denominations Holidays greeting card, quickly and easily.Add, a festive mood in your Christmas cards by using lace or decorative ribbons to string your painted and embossed pendants. Use paint, embossing powder and a heat gun to make this holiday card below. These materials are easily accessible and the final product looks expensive and special.The steps are easy. Visit https://www.eyeconnectcrafts.com/merry-everything-card/ to get started on this beautiful project today!

Gold Star Country Craft Ornament

Tin and star DIY ornament.

Can you believe that you can create a spectacular Christmas star décor using just cardboard and a Newman tin top!? Well you can! Using simple recycled materials to craft with is a fun way to teach your children about gratitude over the holidays, while having fun and making a memory! Make this lovely little recycled craft project with your children over the holidays. Supplies used include the Eye Connect Crafts Celebration Stars, masking tapes, distress ink, embossing folder and circular stamps. If you have lots of different colors of paints available, the better. Instructions are easy to grasp. Check out more about this easy DIY recycled Christmas ornament craft project at https://www.eyeconnectcrafts.com/4950-2/.

Kid-Friendly Crafts: Christmas Tree + Gift Tag

Make this cute little Christmas tree as a fun kids holiday craft project.

Do you have children off from school and home for the holidays? Need a couple of holiday craft project ideas for simple yet fun crafts to make with your kids? Try these two DIY projects that encourage dexterity and fine motor skills though lacing!

Using the Lace-Up Celebration Bulbs and acrylic paints, encourage your kids to paint the unfinished wooden trees and bulbs using their creatively. You can assist them in embossing the piece to add an extra special touch. Then just “lace-up” the bulbs and “decorate” your tree!

Make this easy holiday gift tag with your kids.

When it comes to gift tags, these extra large Lace-Up tags are awesome for fun holiday projects. The Lace-Up tags are large and rectangular and have holes your kids can add string, ribbon or twine through. Paint the tag and let it dry and then add cut out shapes of animals, some Washi tape and fiber strings to complete your holiday kids craft project!

Up-Cycled Angel Wings Christmas Tree Ornaments

Are you fond of making your own unique Christmas ornaments? Here is a unique up-cycled Christmas tree ornament craft project idea is for you!Using the Lace-Up Totem Wings, Scalloped, Small and Rubber Dance Art Stamps, create a spectacular Christmas tree ornament with angel wings! The project is also perfect for display as a table center piece or on a side tables. This fun little craft project idea epitomizes the spirit of the holiday season by showing you two different project ideas! Use a snowman to create a cute ornament or a beautiful red cardinal for a nature inspired holiday decoration. Detailed steps for how to make there Up-Cycled Christmas Ornaments are available at https://www.eyeconnectcrafts.com/upcycled-angel-wings-ornaments/

Super Easy, Vintage Style Christmas Lightbulbs Ornaments

These adorable vintage Christmas faux light bulbs are easy to make and lightweight!

Are the limbs on your tree to week to hold up your Christmas ornaments? Would you like to make a couple of faux Christmas light bulbs from lightweight and affordable materials? With the use of Eye Connect Crafts’ recycled materials, you can create this beautifully shiny yet lightweight vintage style Christmas light bulb for your Christmas trees. They are easily attached to your Christmas tree using miniature cloths pins! Let your tree sparkle with the simple shapes and materials by applying the modern but easy craft treatments.

Christmas Canvas Project

DIY Holiday wall canvas project idea.

When it comes to Christmas decorations, we usually take for granted the easiest -and yet one of the cutest decorations- you can have in your home, a DIY Christmas wall canvas! By using the Lace-Up Celebration bulbs and colorful foam adhesives, you can easily make a eye-catching holiday inspired canvas. For more helpful information about this cute craft, just visit https://www.eyeconnectcrafts.com/christmas-canvas/.

Vintage Christmas Ornament

DIY Craft project vintage Christmas tags.

If you want to create unique Christmas tags with a mix of modern and vintage style, this DIY craft is perfect for you. Just prepare the Lace-Up tags with Distress inks. Add cut out expressions on dark or antiqued papers, and then lace them up with jute twine. Add a special touch with beads on the end of each string. This craft tutorial has a extra technique on how to make your own beads from paper! Make your gifts extra special with these lovely vintage style tags. Or hang them on your tree! Check out the detailed instructions at https://www.eyeconnectcrafts.com/vintage-christmas-lace-up-ornaments/.

How to Make a Zentangled Golden Angel

DIY Christmas Angel made from the Lace-UP Corset and Totem Poppet Horse Wings.

Do you believe in angles? You can make this lovely gold and white angel craft using EyeConnect Crafts’ Lace-Up Corset and Totem Poppet Wings. Try making this entangled angel in small or make a large angel using the large Lace-Up Corset and large Totem Poppet Wings!It would make a perfect addition to your Christmas tree’s ornaments or as a Christmas tree topper! With the use of Lace-up Corset and other handy materials, make this season a bit more whimsical and memorable! Try this step by step zentangle tutorial and angel craft project to create your own guardian at https://www.eyeconnectcrafts.com/dyi-art-making-a-golden-angel-of-light/.

Shimmering Holiday Garland using the Lace-Up Celebration, Stars

DIY colorful craft garland.

Stars are considered to be a symbol of of the holidays. If your looking for another non-denominational holiday decoration try this lovely pastel colored garland featuring Lace-Up stars. The star decorations are easy to create. You can use EyeConnect Lace-Up Celebration, Stars along with your imagination to create a dashing garland for this holiday season. You can paint the stars with any colors you prefer. Then add them to the Rosettes. Thread the stars and rosettes together to assemble the garland. Cause your creativity to make this craft project unique with your signature colors or different materials. Watch the step by step process for making this easy holiday craft project at: https://www.eyeconnectcrafts.com/tag/garland/

Nature Inspired Table Center Piece

Natural Table Center Piece

If your looking for a quick and easy table centerpiece for entertaining this holiday, look no further. This craft project uses EyeConnect Crafts’ Celebration Lightbulbs embossed with gold to augment a nature inspired center piece. The lovely gold embossing of a fir branch offsets the real pine branches surrounding the candles. Quick and easy this craft project is a fun way to add shimmer to your table center piece.

If you have limited time, make things a lot easier by adding one of our unique movable craft projects to your holiday craft. Visit our blog for over unique 150 craft project ideas. We add new craft project ideas every Friday!

New Design Team Call for 2017!

Due to technical issues during the transfer of our website to a new server our DT Call for 2017 has been extended to Jan. 21.

I you wanted to submit and were unable to send me an email please try again. 🙂

We will continue to accept applications till Jan. 21!

Are you a designer or a mixed media artist that likes to work with new and innovative products? Would you like to receive lots of fun unique movable die cuts for free?! Well you are in luck, because EyeConnect Craft is seeking members to join our design team for 2017. We have 2 (or if we get a ton of great designers maybe 3 slots) available!

EyeConnect crafts is seeking members to create and post projects once a month for the year 2017! Design team members will be able to select from ALL of the current -and forthcoming- designs from EyeConnect Crafts’ inventory and receive lots of free product! We also run blog hops several times a year and you will receive free product from these partnerships as well! Design team members will be featured on our website with a full bio, picture, and links to your online blog as well as social media profiles. We also provide a Design Team member badge and watermark as well as promotion on all of our social media channels each time you post.

Design Team Call Themes:

Do you have kids? Do you enjoy crafting with your children? Or perhaps you are teacher that loves decorating your classroom with do-it-yourself crafts? Perhaps you are a teacher that participates on teachers–pay–teachers.com? EyeConnect Crafts’ is looking to add to our blog with new blog posts focused on the field of kids crafts or crafting with kids. These projects can be focused on kids of all ages, including young toddlers up to and including tween and teenagers. We are interested in designers that are interested in increasing the role of hands on learning for children of all ages, through the creation of cool craft projects.

We want to see projects that include things like dioramas, shadow puppets, art journals, nature journals, classroom decor, homeschool projects, crafts projects and lesson plans for use in the classroom as well as general crafting with kids! Of course greeting cards, wreaths, etc. are still acceptable, but we’d like to expand our blog post offerings with new adventuresome projects in crafting.

Design Team Call Submission Guidelines:

To submit to our design team, please send us a link to your blog -or 3-6 samples of your work – as well as a short 2-3 paragraph write-up about what you want to accomplish with your crafting career or your goals for creating to erin@eyeconnectcrafts.com.

Candidates should be familiar how to post in WordPress. Familiarity with the concept of keywords and incorporating them in your copy is a plus. Good photographic skills, and detailed in-process photographs are required. We prefer detailed step-out tutorials with lots of good pictures of the steps.

A strong grasp of the English language and correct grammar is required.

Design Team Call Deadline:

Please submit all materials prior to Fri. Jan. 21. Materials will be reviewed the next week and the winners will be notified ASAP.

Make this Easy Festive Holiday Table Centerpiece

Hi Peeps, it’s Majo here today to show you a festive holiday table centerpiece I made with the Lace-Up Celebration Bulbs.
I painted them all with silver acrylic paint and stamped a fir leaf image on each bulb. Than I heat embossed them with chunky powder in gold and then strung them all on a thin wire.

These Lace-Up bulbs make a super easy and fast festive addition to any table centerpiece. Or to your Christmas decoration, holiday wreath, Christms tree, a picture frame etc., or as in my case the table candle decoration!

What They Are Saying About Our Products…

“For anyone who has ever wished they could draw animals and the position right, or just add symbolism or dimensional interest to their projects, EyeConnect Crafts has the answer! … Made from 100% recycled chipboard, these unique chipboard products can be used in multiple paper crafting applications, from scrapbooks, art journals, and greeting cards to home decor and DIY projects.”

Stamp & Scrap Magazine, by Gail GreenStamp & Scrap Arts Magazine!

“Made from 100 recyclable materials, these DIY cardboard cutouts from EyeConnect Crafts are sure to spice up your stamping routine. Paper dolls are more popular than ever, and many Lace-Ups would compliment any stamped dolls perfectly. These funky cardboard shapes are easy to use – all you have to do is pop them out, embellish, string them up and you’ve got an intriguing accent to add to your stamped collage or diorama. String up such designs as the garter and corset with distressed ribbon for a shabby chic appearance. Try adding eyelets for an extra industrial effect!”

“I fell for EyeConnect Crafts’ Totem Poppets the minute I saw them. What captured me right away and has held my interest over the years is the design and how different they are from everything else in the world of paper crafts and mixed media. They are graphic and graceful, intelligent and sophisticated without being too offbeat, beautifully crafted, fun to use; neither too large nor too small. The story of each totem animal is an added bonus. I’ve always had an affinity for elephants and turtles. Now I know why! Like Goldilocks’ porridge: Just right!”